Sleep and Spontaneity

When I ask myself why it is that I should so often wake up not under the sheet, or with my jaggedly V-necked undershirt still on, or with the lights blazing all night until I shut them off and briefly appear, via IM, to be “available” at 5:30 in the morning, I am forced to conclude that it has something to do with spontaneity. The moment when I refuse to put things in order for the morning, or even in order for the night, is unfailingly the moment when I lose consciousness. Otherwise, like somebody who has set out all the place settings, but doesn’t know whether any guests will arrive, I lie there in my bed, looking with painful and wry science at my own eyelids, wondering what it means to put another day in the hamper. Going to sleep has an actual and terrible taste. I associate it with the numbing milk of unripe figs, the numbing fuzz of unripe (hachiya) persimmons.

I really enjoy sleep, but I inevitably want days that are 30 hours long. Left to my own devices, I tend to go to sleep at 4 and get up at 10. But when forced into more “typical” rhythms, I need those damned 8 hours. The day is too short.